Light and Darkness
by BlackBlade0001
Summary: Atem left for the Afterlife, but he had to fulfill one last task before being granted Passage and so he is sent to the Wold of the Living again, to help someone else. Light and Darkness need each other, they always have and always will. Hikari!Harry.
1. Fated Meeting

**Light and Darkness**

Chapter One

_Fated Meeting_

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Yu-Gi-Oh! nor Harry Potter, they belong to Takahashi and Rowling respectively and I take credit only for the situations in which I put their characters. I am also not making any sort of profit out of this story…would be great if I did, but I'm not. Eh, let's move on now…

**Summary:** The Pharaoh fulfilled his destiny and went though the Ceremonial Battle and on to the Afterlife. Only, he never considered that perhaps it wasn't as easy as that. Darkness needs light to exist. In another world, a young boy has just had his life changed, became orphan and hero in the same night, and lost a part of himself. They are both incomplete. And so, the gods decide to send the Pharaoh back to life, to become the boy's protector and guardian darkness. Hikari!Harry, Spirit!Atem, Manipulative!Dumbledore, etc.

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He walked through the Door and into the blinding light of the Afterlife. His heart hurting with the separation of his friends, and honestly breaking as he thought of Yugi. His Aibou. His Light. But it was over now, everything that could be done had been done, and everything that could be said had been said. He had fulfilled his Destiny and now it was finally his time to die, thousands of years after he was supposed to. He had to admit that part of him was relieved, for he would finally be able to rest, after millennia of being bound to this world. Most of him was still reluctant, though, and considered turning his back to the light and returning to his Aibou and his friends, to remain in this world for just a little longer, live just for a bit more.

He didn't though, because this was the way things were supposed to be, and he had to respect that. Yugi and everyone would go on and live their lives as they were supposed to, without the intervention of ancient Egyptian spirits and maniacs threatening to steal the Millennium Items and taking over the world. This was for the best.

And so he did it. He walked into the light and felt the door close behind him, leaving him trapped on the other side.

He sighed and allowed his crimson gaze to roam over his surroundings. White. An astounding and never-ending amount of white. Just white and nothing else, which while decidedly out of the norm, wasn't what he had been expecting from the Afterlife. He panicked for a moment when the thought that perhaps this was a punishment entered his mind. It would make sense too, for even though he had helped save the world several time before, he had succumbed to the darkness inside himself many others and he _did_ deserve a punishment…but this? Was he supposed to spend eternity in this whiteness, just as he had spent three millennia in the darkness of the Puzzle. The punishment was extremely cruel at the same time it was perfectly fitting.

…_No Punishment…_

He looked everywhere around him, but his eyes could find no one else standing in the whiteness, no source for the voice that echoed around him. "Who is there? What do you want?" His experience had taught him that mysterious voices he could find no source for were usually bad news and so, made him extremely suspicious.

…_The Ancients. We who saw the birth of your world and your kind. We who created…_

The Pharaoh was speechless. _Gods_. He was talking to gods. What were you supposed to do in a situation like this? Sure, he had expected he would have to meet some deities sooner or later, for Anubis would have to weigh his soul before allowing him passage, but it still…

…_You cannot be granted Passage…_

The Pharaoh felt his stomach drop and dread chill his veins. So this was it then? His deeds in life must be more evil than good if he was being denied entrance. After everything, all the struggle and the lessons, after all the friendships and overcome obstacles, he had still given in to his inner darkness enough that he would now be devoured by Ammut*. _'I'm sorry I failed, Aibou. Even after everything you did for me and everything you taught me'_

…No failure. You have not been Judged yet…

Atem's eyes, which had closed as soon as he had heard the earlier proclamation, opened at that, confusion mixed with the smallest flicker of hope shone in the red depths of his eyes. "What? Why, then?" Why not grant him passage? He didn't understand, this wasn't making any sense.

…_You are not complete, not whole. You cannot enter if you are not whole…_

His hope died a painful death at that. Of course, now it made sense. He had sacrificed himself three thousand years ago and ended up with his soul sealed in a golden Puzzle, but a ritual like that inevitably cost him a part of that soul, lost either during the Sealing, or in the millennia spent trapped since. He was not a whole soul, and so Yugi had become his other half, his lighter and better half, when he had been finally released from his prison. But now Yugi was gone and he was incomplete again. Panic rose in him at that, if he couldn't be granted passage, did that mean Yugi…

…_He will. When he dies and you can be reunited once more…_

He released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. At least his Aibou wouldn't have to suffer the same fate as himself, and that was more than enough consolation for the Pharaoh. "Will I stay here until he comes, then? Or stay even afterwards?" He was dreading the answer, but he _had_ to know.

…_Not staying…_

His confusion returned full-force at that. Not staying? But, where else was he supposed to go if he couldn't be granted Passage. He had crossed the Door to the Afterlife and so the only way he could move now was forwards, but that was forbidden for him, so he was trapped…wasn't he?

…_Light and Darkness will always need one another, it is the way they were made. A Light will need you, and you will need them. Not whole either, one like you…_

There was another like him? Impossible! The way he had lost part of his soul was not only a consequence of forgotten magic, but also the result of many different things put together into an unexpected result. It was impossible that the process could be replicated, and he didn't know of any other way a person could lose part of themselves like that. It was unnatural and went against the Laws of Nature, which was probably why he couldn't be allowed to move on. If there indeed was another, and he was still inclined to disbelieve that, they would not be granted Passage either when they died, and that made Atem pity them.

…_You will need one another. The world will need you both…_

The Pharaoh felt tempted to groan. Not _another _Save-the-World trip! He'd had enough of those in life, and now had to put up with another in death? He sighed. Well, if he was sent back to the world of the Living then at least he would have the chance to see his Aibou and friends again, after all, and that was always something to cheer up about.

…_No back there. Another world. Another reality of your world…_

And before he had the chance to ask what that meant, or protest about anything, the whiteness flashed brightly and then dissolved into nothing, and he was falling…

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When Atem finally came to himself again, not sure how someone who was a spirit could go unconscious in the first place, he noticed that it was nighttime and rather cold. For a moment he wondered what he and Yugi were doing outside at this time and in this weather, before his memories came crashing back, overwhelming him for a moment.

Yugi was gone. He and Jonouchi, Honda, Anzu, Ryou, Kaiba, Mokuba, Otogi, Isis, Malik…everyone was gone. Or rather, _he_ was gone, and they were all back in another reality. He felt anger and despair filling him, making him feel cold and numb in a way the weather could never hope to match. It was not fair. It wasn't fair that after everything they had gone through together, he was separated from them by not only Death, but a whole freaking Reality! The Pharaoh let loose a cry of anger then, one that would go unnoticed in the night, for no one could hear a spirit's voice.

But then, another cry answered it, one much different from his own, a child's. Startled out of his anger, Atem turned around and his gaze instantly fell on the little figure just lying there, on a doorstep of all places. Ruby and emerald met, and the spirit felt his anger starting to fade away, replaced with calm and peace.

Curiously, he moved closer to the child, and quickly noticed that the babe's eyes didn't leave him for a second. He could see him! That only helped to increase his curiosity. He crouched next to the now softly crying baby, their eyes still locked with one another's. Atem finally broke the staring contest as his gaze went instead to inspect their surroundings, expecting to find a mother fumbling with her keys as she tried to open the door and get herself and her child inside. But there was no one. No mother, no father, no one at all that could be looking after the little one, just the empty and cold night.

The Pharaoh felt his heart break all over again as he turned back to the child, a child who was as alone in the world as he was now. He placed a ghostly hand on the baby's head as he tried to calm the young one down. "It's alright. Shhh, you don't have to cry now, I'm here. I'm here, little one" The child's cries faded into hiccups after a little while and Atem felt strangely pleased with himself at that.

"You can see me, so that probably means you are the Light that is supposed to need me. I have to admit, you do look like you need someone right now, little one" He had been so ready to resent and hate whoever it was that was supposed to be his new Light for being there when Yugi couldn't, for trying to replace something irreplaceable. But now, he truly couldn't be angry with this child, and it wasn't the little one's fault anyways. The Pharaoh sighed again and sat down in the doorstep, his arms wrapped around the bundled baby, ready to wait and keep guard until someone came to rescue his little Light.

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**Author's Notes:** Okay, another plot bunny that burrowed into my brain! My own version of the half-soul, yami/hikari thing…mixed together with a strong dose of Harry Potter and my slightly bizarre imagination XD.

Anyways, I'll be trying to write this and _"Sons of Ra"_ at the same time, but the other one takes preference since I started it first…just warning you guys.

*Read a bit on the Ancient Egyptian's beliefs on the afterlife here: (delete the spaces) http : / www . crystalinks . com / egyptafterlife . html

So, what do you think? Love it, hate it? Too strange? Let me know in your reviews! ^_^


	2. Meeting the Family

**Light and Darkness**

Chapter Two

_Meeting the Family_

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Yu-Gi-Oh! nor Harry Potter, they belong to Takahashi and Rowling respectively and I take credit only for the situations in which I put their characters. I am also not making any sort of profit out of this story…would be great if I did, but I'm not. Eh, let's move on now…

**Summary:** The Pharaoh fulfilled his destiny and went though the Ceremonial Battle and on to the Afterlife. Only, he never considered that perhaps it wasn't as easy as that. Darkness needs light to exist. In another world, a young boy has just had his life changed, became orphan and hero in the same night, and lost a part of himself. They are both incomplete. And so, the gods decide to send the Pharaoh back to life, to become the boy's protector and guardian darkness. Hikari!Harry, Spirit!Atem, Manipulative!Dumbledore, etc.

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The whole night. He had stood guard and waited for one whole night. What was wrong with these people, leaving a child so young outside for so long, and in this kind of weather no less? The ex-Pharaoh felt the urge to growl, but he was much too busy keeping his new charge entertained. He had discovered that the young one could also touch him, even though he was a spirit and didn't really have a body, but he wasn't all that surprised at that, it had been the same…before.

He sighed again as he allowed the child to grasp his finger into his own little hand, apparently perfectly content with staying outside and playing with the ghostly finger of a long-dead Egyptian King. At lest he wasn't crying now.

Crimson eyes shot away from the small form of the baby and quickly scanned his surroundings, for he had heard a noise nearby and wanted to make sure whatever it was posed no threat to him or the child. Fortunately, it proved to be only a man going out of the house across from them and into his car. Apparently, the people of this neighborhood were starting to awaken. Good, it meant that perhaps _now_ someone would find the child and take him inside at last.

He didn't have to wait much longer, for only about fifteen minutes later the door in front of them opened and revealed a man standing behind it. Well, Atem thought it was a man, but honestly, he looked quite similar to the picture in *_Just Desserts_, large and seriously overweight, with watery eyes and a soul full of greed. Crimson eyes narrowed. He did not like this man.

It took the overweight male more than a moment or two to realize that there was a baby abandoned on his doorstep, he sputtered, startled and certainly not liking the situation, and then quickly pulled the child inside the house, before the neighbors got a chance to see anything. The spirit was quick to follow, not willing to leave his little Light alone with this person. By now the man had tore open the letter than had been left with the baby and was reading quickly, his face becoming redder and redder by the minute, which only helped to worry Atem even more.

"Petunia! Come, come quick. Look at this! The-the nerve of these…these people!"

The Pharaoh felt like covering his ears in order to block the infernal shouting, but decided to busy himself instead with calming down the child, who had certainly gotten upset over said shouting, before he started to cry and made the whole thing worse. He barely even noticed it when a thin and rather horse-like woman hurried towards them and started to talk with the man in hushed and frightful tones, an angry exclamation being added every once in a while.

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Atem was glaring at a wall, his enraged red eyes almost threatening to burn wholes into the thing. He wasn't just angry, he was outraged and fuming. Apparently, the overweight man and the horsy woman were none other than his charge's uncle and aunt. Now, Atem was willing to overlook their initial unpleasantness and even the tainted feeling in their souls, since they were the little one's family and all, and family was very important, but then they went and did…this!

The man had already left, presumably to work although the Pharaoh couldn't understand how someone of that size and with so little ability to move could possibly work at anything, and the woman had stayed in the house, presumably to look after the children. Yes, children. There was another child in the house, one that although he didn't look all that much older than his Light, was definitely larger…and louder. Atem had very little experience with children, but even he could tell that the most well-behaved of the two was his little one, but even a blind man could have been able to tell, what with the tantrums the other child threw. Only, the woman wasn't looking after _them_, she was focusing on her son and allowing the other child to go ignored.

That was what brought Atem's anger, and he was pretty sure he would have at least glared the woman to submission by now if only she could see him. It had been four hours since he and his charge first entered the house and not once (once!) had she approached the black-haired baby to make sure that he was alright, and not hungry or something. He might not be an expert, but he was pretty sure children needed constant supervision.

Well, he decided, if she wasn't going to look after the child like any decent person would, then he would have to do the job as best as a spirit could, although that probably wasn't much. He would still try.

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He was sitting on the floor, right next to the old playpen where his Light was currently being kept, watching as the child entertained himself with some brightly colored blocks that the woman had thrown in hastily before leaving once again, but his attention was for once not really focused on the child. The aunt and uncle were there too, on the other side of the room, discussing what would become of the child someone had callously dropped on their doorstep.

Apparently and from what Atem could gather, the couple hated the child's parents, who were supposedly part of some cult or something, and didn't really want to look after him but someone, whoever had placed the child outside their house, had insisted (Atem took that to mean 'threatened') and they were scared of going against that person…or people, probably the whole cult, from what he understood. So they were going to keep him, albeit reluctantly. They were currently complaining about how much money they would have to waste and how they didn't want the child to contaminate their precious little son. It made the once-Pharaoh feel just about ready to blast someone into the Shadow Realm, if only he could.

Atem didn't think this was good news either. Sure, the little one would be with his family and all, but said family didn't really seem to like him at all, and being forced to take him in like this, against their wishes, was bound to create resentment and perhaps even hate. He knew what kind of darkness dwelt in the hearts of men, and he knew that hatred could easily fester there, even against someone as innocent and small as his new Light. But really, what could he possibly do about it? He didn't even have a body of his own, he had no Millennium Puzzle and no option but go along with the whole thing.

Well, at least the child still had him, even if he doubted a long-since-dead Pharaoh was really the appropriate company for someone so young. He could still probably do a much better job at raising him than his sorry excuse for a family could. He shook his head as he looked once more at his charge.

"Looks like we are staying here, little Light. Don't worry, though, I will not leave you alone with these…people"

The boy seemed oblivious to the direness of the situation and even to Atem's darker thoughts as he answered with a happy giggle and then raised his arms to the mostly-invisible spirit, rather clearly stating that he wanted to be picked up. The Pharaoh had never regretted being little more than a ghost until now, when he would have to disappoint the innocent child and deny him his wish.

The two adults looked sharply at the playpen and Atem could feel their nervous incredulity at seeing the child giggling to himself and raising his arms towards nothing at all. This was probably not good either, but it was hardly his or the child's fault that no one else could even see him. When the couple turned away, not without muttering something about 'unnatural' and 'abnormal' and so making Atem all the more frustrated and angry, the spirit once again offered his hand to the child, who was now pouting over not being picked up but seemed content enough to just hold on as he resumed playing with the blocks.

The spirit sighed again. He was a Pharaoh, a King, a Warrior, he had saved the world and defeated many different foes, he was the undefeated King of Games and number one Duelist, but he didn't know the first thing about playing babysitter. This was going to be a long lifetime.

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**Author's Notes:** Allright! Chapter Two is up! ^_^

* [http : / yugioh . wikia . com / wiki / Just_Desserts] Please tell me that doesn't look even a little bit like Vernon Dursley…I dare you XD

I want to thank all the people who reviewed -^_^- And I seriously want to answer your reviews, but is being a little daft at the moment and not letting me read them...I'll keep trying, though, and answer in the next chapter if it gets fixed ^^


	3. Growing Up Part I

**Light and Darkness**

Chapter Three

_Growing Up Part I_

**Warning:** Child abuse and neglect in this chapter, read at your own risk. Also includes some mentions of blood.

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As it turned out, life was even more complicated than even the Pharaoh had expected, as there were several surprises of the unwelcome kind to be discovered during the first days he and his Light spent together.

The first, and possibly most unwelcome, was when Atem found that there had once been an usurper sharing his little charge's soul. The spirit had almost gone on a rampage to look for whoever was responsible for such travesty, and probably would have (intangible spirit or not!) if not for the fact that his Light was much too young to be on his own and that he didn't trust the boy's family as far as he could throw them and since he didn't have a body with which to throw them, that wasn't much. Atem didn't exactly understand how it could have happened, but he had his theories at least. The most likely was that, sometime soon after the child lost a piece of his own soul (and he still didn't know how _that_ had happened), a piece of someone else's, perhaps a wandering spirit or ghost, had taken residence in the empty hole left by the missing piece, essentially joining souls with his Light and acting as his Darkness. If this was true then it only made sense that the usurper had been vanished when the child's true and real Darkness arrived, since there was no space for both of them. Atem was perfectly fine with that, and hoped the idiot who dared touch the child's soul and try to take his place was spending some vacation time in hell, but that was just his opinion.

The second was that the child's family was really worse than he'd thought. Oh, they didn't outright abuse the child or anything, but the poor little Light had gone ignored for most of the time, to the point where after three days, the child had already learned that his cries would go unanswered and he had to wait quietly for his aunt to feed or attend to him whenever the woman wasn't busy with her own child. The other boy, who looked about twice his little one's body mass, had also learned that he could bother and even hit his cousin and there would be no consequences, not even a scolding. If the Light, on the other hand, tried to fight back he was quickly reprimanded and was given a smack on his bottom. The first time _that_ happened, Atem had felt the Shadows begin to stir and wake at his outrage, but without the Puzzle's help to fully control them, he had trouble calling them in the first place. The uncle was no better, because as soon as the man even caught glimpse of the black-haired child, he would go on an angry and usually long rant about 'freaks' and 'good-for-nothing crackpots' and glare angrily at the poor boy. The child had learned to stay clear from the man's path by the end of the first week. Smart kid, he was.

The third, not really unwelcome but certainly unexpected, surprise came from the Light himself. The boy had magic. Not Shadow magic or anything, but natural, human magic. Atem had to admit that this made sense, since the child's family were always going on about his 'freakishness' and that 'lot' his parents had been part of. He had at first thought that they meant a cult or something similar, but he was starting to suspect that the child's dead family might have been magicians. He had almost hit himself in the head for not having realized it sooner, but now that he knew, he could feel the warmth of the child's magic that now resonated through both of their souls, comforting and energizing at the same time.

This last surprise was good in the sense that the magic would probably give his Light a great advantage in protecting himself as he grew up, and Atem might even be able to help him train using some of what he remembered about Mahaad and Mana's abilities. Not only that, but the magic was now leaking through their bond and to him, becoming a shared power of sorts, and that would certainly aid him in his quest to guard his Light. The bad news was that the child's family, who really, really hated anything that they considered out of the norm (such as, for example, magic), would only get more hateful if they discovered that the boy did indeed have this gift, as opposed to only suspecting he did, like now. It was all enough to give a spirit a headache.

Still, Light and Darkness had both managed and lived through those difficult early days. Atem learned more about babies than he had thought possible, and the child had learned to ignore his family as they ignored him and go to Atem with most of his problems, but mostly to seek comfort.

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Time moved on as it always did, and before they even realized it, the child was already three years old. Not that they could really tell this, since his birthday was never celebrated or even spoken of and his age had only been mentioned once by his aunt, but Atem had used that little piece of information and then counted the days and months in order to have some idea of the boy's age.

Another thing that was never mentioned was the child's name. He was always 'boy' or 'freak' or 'you' to his family and Atem outright refused to call him any of those. For Ra's sake, he didn't even know his Light's name! What kind of guardian didn't know his charge's name? Still, something had to be done as he couldn't call the boy 'little one' all his life, and so he had settled for calling him was he was, and the child became known to the two of them as 'Light'.

And as though that wasn't enough cruelty towards the child, the aunt and uncle once again surprised him with their cold disregard for him. Light and the couple's son (whose name he still wasn't sure of, since it constantly shifted from 'Duddy' to 'Diddykums' to 'Dudders' and then occasionally 'Duddley') had shared a room with his cousin up until now. But the two were now older and bigger, and the other child's toys and general garbage, wich was already taking up a whole other room, was now starting to take more space and clutter the one they inhabited. It also didn't help when the robust boy was finally deemed too small for his bed (in Atem's opinion that had happened quite some time ago) and so a new, 'big boy's' bed had been purchased, along with matching furniture and whatnot. This didn't leave enough space for two children and so his Light had been moved. Now, this normally wouldn't be a problem at all, since he in fact wanted that demon child away from his charge so that the smallest boy could finally rest without toys or food being thrown at him at all hours of the day and sometimes even night. No, the problem was _where_ they moved the boy to. Apparently, his little Light was worth only the smallest of rooms in the house, and by smallest they meant cupboard-small…literarily. His Light, the other half of his being in this lifetime, was being moved to a cupboard. To him, who had been Prince and Pharaoh once in his life, this seemed almost inconceivable, but it still happened. And, of course, he'd had to move into the cupboard with the boy. He was happy for being a spirit then, since he didn't need air and all, for otherwise the place would have been uninhabitable for the two of them, it already was a tight fit. And still, the child endured.

Now, Light was always a very bright child. He observed the world around him and listened closely and attentively to everything Atem explained about that world, and even to the occasional snippet of information he could get from his aunt and uncle. At his three years he could speak easily, although still having trouble with the longer and more complicated words, even though Atem tried his best to help him learn (especially since no one else in this sorry excuse for a home was going to). This helped him a lot when it was finally time to go to pre-school. And wasn't _that_ the joyous occasion.

The once-Pharaoh had tried to explain to the child what to expect from this exciting new place known as school, but he was hardly the expert, having never gone to pre-school himself and only knowing a tiny bit that Yugi had shared with him years ago, and so couldn't be much help. Still, they went over the basics: manners, greetings and rules. And of course, the one rule he forgot to mention just had to be the most important. It hadn't seemed necessary to mention it at the time, since it was just so natural and taken for granted at home than he'd thought it would be the same at school. Light apparently didn't share his thoughts. When the school teacher had called the children by name and someone named 'Harry' didn't answer, it was discovered that Light's real name was in fact Harry. The child had argued that that wasn't his name, because he was called Light. The teacher had thought that might be a nickname someone gave him and apparently found the whole thing cute so she asked who called him that and Light had answered…truthfully. Well, as truthful as a three-year old dealing with a long-since-dead Pharaoh only he was able to see could. Fortunately, the teacher thought he just had an imaginary friend, even if the rest of the class laughed and called the boy a baby. Atem hadn't liked that, of course, but it was much better than people knowing the truth. The Pharaoh asked the boy never to mention him to other people after that, and Light agreed.

That afternoon when the child arrived back home, he locked himself in his cupboard before allowing himself to cry. The day that had started so great and exciting had turned sour pretty quickly. The class had laughed at him, Dudley had bullied him during both recess and class when the teacher wasn't looking, no one wanted to be friends with him because of Dudley's threats and his own weirdness, a teacher had scolded him for forgetting to bring his lunch (as though he would be allowed lunch!) and a boy had discovered him speaking to Atem and had teased him for talking to himself like a crazy person.

Atem had wrapped his arms around the child and rocked him inside the privacy of their little cupboard until the boy's tears finally dried and he started to drift off to sleep. The day hadn't been easy on him either, because every time something hurt his Light, physically or emotionally, he felt more and more helpless to stop it. He had decided then that he would have to practice his control over Shadow magic even without the help of his Puzzle, because he needed it, and Light needed him.

"Why is everyone so mean, 'Tem? Why can't they be nice like you…" A yawn interrupted him there "…like you are?" The innocence in the child's question tore at his heart, because he knew that innocence could easily be shattered by the world's cruelty.

"Because they don't know how special you are, like I do. You are _my_ Light, and I will always be nice to you, even when other are too foolish to" Atem had said, an undertone of concern and worry in his words.

"I'll be Light f'rever then…I dun wanna be Harry" The boy was by then more asleep than awake.

"So you shall be" Atem had answered after a soft chuckle.

The sound of Atem's calm and deep voice finally lulled the boy into a light sleep, but the Pharaoh couldn't find rest or peace of mind for what remained of the day.

Things at school hadn't really changed after that, although some might consider they even got worse. Still, Harry had employed the same method he used to deal with his family's scorn, ignore them and be as inconspicuous as possible; after all if they don't notice you, they can't harm you. This was hardly the best of situations, but Atem had to get used to it and still try to bring Light some happiness. If they couldn't find that with people, they turned to another source: imagination. And nothing fed Light's already great imagination better than stories. The boy's bright green eyes lit up excitedly and with a happiness not often seen there every time the teacher read them a story and so Atem had decided that he deserved more stories told to him.

That had started what then became a nightly ritual of storytelling. Atem would entertain his Light with tales of his time as Pharaoh, or of the many duels he and Yugi had participated in, of his Priests and Magicians, of his friends back in Japan, anything and everything at all. The child soaked it up like a dry sponge and always asked for more details, more stories and more knowledge of his Darkness. Atem was sure that the child could by now hold his own in a debate with an Egyptologist with all the information his brain had retained. Light loved every minute of it, so Atem decided to share as much as he could.

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When the boy was four years old and had been in school for a whole year already, they turned their attention to books in order to get even more stories, as Atem's repertoire was diminishing dangerously. Harry would borrow a book that looked interesting from the little collection in the classroom and take it with him to recess. To anyone else, the child sitting under the tree with the book in his lap might look like he was practicing his reading by himself. The truth was that there was an invisible spirit there, sitting behind the boy with his arms wrapped around the small child while he read aloud and used one see-through hand to let the boy know what word he was currently reading, with the child repeating after him as he learned to associate sounds and written word. The teacher thought Light was getting help from his family with his learning, and no one bothered with correcting her.

Light had by then stopped expecting help from other people and learned to depend on himself and Atem. This reduced the number of times the child's trust was broken and so the number of times Atem had to comfort a crying boy, but it wasn't entirely good either. The Pharaoh often wondered what kind of world this was that a four-year-old had to learn such independency, the kind of independency that some people ten times his age struggled for. Everyone had to lean on someone else, and that was something that Atem had learned during his time with Yugi and his friends. At least his Light had him, and that would have to be enough for now.

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The year his charge turned five was a year of change, and not all good either. Light, known as Harry to his teachers and classmates, had become a rather accomplished student. This was thanks to both the child's natural intellect and curiosity and Atem's constant mentoring. The Pharaoh didn't know everything there was to know in the world, even if Light was convinced of the contrary, but he was more than capable of instructing a child with reading and counting in such basic way. The class didn't really have tests or anything of the like, so there was no way for Light to prove exactly how smart he was, but he still caught the teacher's attention. And, as they had learned after years at the Dursely's, attention was not good.

Mrs. Martin, the teacher in charge of Light's class, had of course happily called the boy's guardians to tell them what an extraordinary child they had. 'Extraordinary' means 'out of the ordinary', which means 'out out the normal' which in turn means angry relatives. Light had suffered his first spanking after that, accompanied with accusations of cheating and the like. That memory still brought a feeling of cold fury to the Pharaoh's fragmented soul.

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**Flashback**

_The spirit of the Pharaoh followed anxiously after his little charge as they entered the house, followed by the boy's aunt and uncle, his cousin already upstairs and probably breaking things. That foolish woman, the teacher, had decided to get talkative on Light's accomplishments at school and told the Dursleys. Stupid woman, didn't even have an idea of what she was bringing down on his Light's head._

_The door closed with a bang and the raven-haired child flinched visibly, fully expecting a smack on the head and going to his cupboard for the rest of the day without food. Atem sighed, resigned to hearing his charge's belly grumble another night and not being able to do anything other than distract the child with stories of days past. Sometimes it really sucked to be dead._

_The overweight man that was Vernon Dursley grabbed the child's arm and roughly dragged him deeper into the house, until they were standing right outside of the little haven that was the cupboard._

"_Telling lies to your teacher, eh, boy? Cheating no doubt, stealing the hard work of normal kids, eh?" Dursley's voice boomed in the small hallways, spittle flying as the man yelled._

_Each accusation brought down a heavy hand right on the child's buttocks. Atem was no stranger to corporeal punishment, since such methods had been around since before even his days as Pharaoh, but the man was seriously big and quite strong even if he lacked fitness, and Light was so very small. Tears started to fall from the child's eyes as the pain increased and his uncle's hits didn't stop. That was more than enough to bring Atem to his wit's end. Light never cried in front of the Dursleys, or anyone other than his Darkness really, and to break down now the boy had to be in obvious pain._

_Helplessness and desperation pooled inside of him, tugging at his soul until he thought it would be ripped apart even more than it already was. But then, something started to form in his heart that hadn't been there since the early days of his liberation from the Puzzle. Hate, pure and almost tangible hate. He still remembered those days, back when he didn't even know who he was, when Yugi had just freed him from the eternal darkness of his own Puzzle and he met a world that was cruel and mean to his Light, when he had punished those he considered evil without mercy or guilt. He had changed since then, of course, came to know things like friendship and support, and light. But right now, when his Light, so much smaller and more defenseless than Yugi had ever been, was being unjustly punished like this, by his own uncle no less, he felt his self-control snap._

_Atem had been practicing his control over the Shadows for about a year now, and even though he still couldn't open up a direct portal into the Shadow Realm and send someone to eternal hell there, he had enough power to pull some minor Shadows to do his bidding. _

_Slowly, almost tantalizingly, unnatural Shadows rose into the walls of the hallway, moving almost like flickering fire, but dark and cold. It took about a minute for Vernon Dursley to notice that something was happening and stop his until then relentless abuse on the child entrusted to his care. The man's beady eyes widened and Atem could almost taste the fear in his heart at the sight of the angry and hungry Shadows. The spirit smirked, and it was a dark smirk, full of malice and hatred. His red eyes shone in the unnatural darkness like drops of freshly spilt blood. It was truly fortunate for Vernon that he couldn't see him, or the man might have been condemned to life on an Asylum after that, driven crazy by the almost demonic apparition._

"_S-stop it! Whatever you're doing stop it, y-you freak!" The man's voice showed his honest fear, stuttering and shaking._

_The Shadow Master was ready and more than willing to unleash his Shadows and allow them to rip the man into little pieces, to let his blood paint the walls in lovely red. He was just about to issue the order and sit back to watch the show, pleased of himself, when a soft voice cut through his thoughts._

"_No, 'Tem. He's not worth it. I'm fine, you can stop now" Light had said, his voice calm but with a note of pleading, which along with his tear-stained face only helped in making Atem feel true guilt._

_Instantly, the Shadows receded, allowing warmth and light back into the hallway. Vernon threw his nephew into the cupboard swiftly, apparently not wanting to touch him any more than necessary. The man's hands were still shaking, and he was sweating quite impressively. The Pharaoh quickly followed into the tiny room and almost felt his heart shatter when the boy flinched at the sight of him._

"_Shhh, it's alright, little Light. I did not mean to do that, to scare you. I'm sorry, but sometimes I lose myself, when I see you in pain or danger. I'm sorry" Atem's voice had been as low and non-threatening as possible._

_The Pharaoh extended a hand towards the child, stopping before actually touching him and allowing the boy to make the decision and final move. Those green eyes looked into his own red ones and it was almost as though the boy looked into his soul. Finally, apparently having found what he had been looking for, the child took his hand in his own smaller one and scooted closer to the spirit._

"_It's ok. I'm ok. I just don't want you to lose yourself like that, it was scary" The child's voice was but a whisper, clearly not wanting to draw his relatives' attention again this day._

_Atem nodded, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he remembered the times this sort of thing had happened before. It hadn't been pleasant then, and it certainly wasn't pleasant now, but he couldn't say he honestly regretted it either, as it had stopped the unjust punishment Light had been going through._

"_Only you can bring me back when I am like that. It is in our very nature, little one. You are the Light and I am the Darkness, and I can't stop what I am"_

_The child nodded in understanding. He had heard this explanation before, had grown up knowing that they were essentially half-souls and completed one another like two sides of a coin. He had grown up being Light protected and sheltered by Darkness, he was used to it by now._

"_Then I'll always be here, so you won't lose yourself and if you do, I can bring you back" _

_Light was always like that, Atem had found, always thinking up and offering some solution to every trouble that came their way with the simplest of things. It did reassure Atem, though, because Light never gave his word lightly and if he said he'd be there to bring him back, then he would, one way or another. The Pharaoh smiled and brushed the boy's tears away with his fingers, silently comforting him as he had done thousands of times before._

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Light had been right that day, the whole thing had been scary, for both of them even. He had thought he had more self-control than that, but apparently he was still easily enraged by his other half's suffering. It didn't really matter, he supposed, as the man on the receiving end of his wrath had been more than deserving, he only regretted not being able to really punish the bastard without going against Light's wishes. The man was most reluctant to harm the poor child after that, and even flinched one or two times when the boy got a bit too close to him, so that would have to be enough…for now.

That was also the year when Light's home life got even harder. Apparently, Aunt Petunia (who Atem sometimes referred to as 'screeching harpy' much to Light's amusement) had decided that she'd had enough of the 'lazy, good-for-nothing little leech' that was her nephew and that the boy would have to start helping around the house to make up for the expenses of having taken him in. The Pharaoh had once commented to his charge that he still thought the woman was just too lazy to keep doing all the housework herself and Ra forbid little Duddy overexert himself with such tasks. And so, the chores began.

At first it was little things, such as taking out the trash and sweeping the floor every day. But as the child grew used to it and became able to do more, work started to pile up on his shoulders. Atem was convinced that he was being treated even worse than the slaves had in his Kingdom, but hadn't mentioned anything for fear of upsetting Light. The boy had the tendency to get seriously upset if he suspected Atem thought him weak or stupid, or any such nonsense that could get into his head, and so the Pharaoh avoided comments that had even the slightest possibility of being taken the wrong way. He supposed that it was to be expected that the child would act like this, seeking the approval of the only person who had ever fully approved of him in the first place, because he didn't want to lose that one person, he didn't want to lose Atem.

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By the time Harry was six, a full five years after he had first been dumped on a doorstep and met his Darkness for the very first time, the boy had started to grow cold to the world. This worried Atem terribly, because he knew a Light was supposed to be warm and friendly, like Yugi was, but again, he never made a comment on it. The ridiculously long lists of chores and his own schoolwork kept Light entertained enough that he rarely had contact with other human beings (certainly his family didn't count as such, in the spirit's opinion) and spent whatever free time he might have locked in his cupboard and talking with Atem, which the spirit didn't really mind at all.

The boy latched on to the once-Pharaoh as though he was the only thing keeping him sane, and perhaps he indeed was. And so, out of necessity, the Darkness taught him how to be more independent, how to survive on his own if it became necessary, especially after Light first started considering running away. Atem had nipped that idea in the bud, knowing that his charge was still much too young to venture out into the world with nothing but an invisible spirit with a barely-there control on Shadow magic and his own wits. So they had stayed, but the Pharaoh truly wondered how long the child would tolerate this life before he tried to escape, with or without his Dark's consent.

After that, the boy had been resentful to adults and other children alike for at least a month. The other children didn't really approach him anyways, not even the new ones they met at Primary school, but that was probably because he acted so old, so much like an adult and a polite one at that, so it was no great loss anyways. It worried Atem more when Light stopped going to the teachers for help in his work or advice on what book to read, and even stopped what little participation in class he had allowed himself until then (after Vernon's fit the last year, Light became an underachiever in order to keep out of trouble). The child _needed_ to talk to other people every once in a while, after all, but he refused to most of the time.

Still, as indifferent as Light was to the rest of the world, he was always warm towards Atem himself. He would tell the Pharaoh of his thoughts in every and all subjects and spend his recess at school sitting alone in one corner of the playground trying to read aloud to the spirit, succeeding more and more with this as time went by and he learned more words. Atem would never forget the first time he had received a present from his Light.

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Flashback

_In was early morning, really early in the morning, as in just after sunrise, and the noise from that Ra-damned banging on the cupboard door woke the once-Pharaoh up. The spirit had grown used to being subjected to this every single morning and didn't even grumble now, as he did at first. Nighttime was the only time he allowed himself to rest and 'sleep', if it could indeed be called that, because he knew that he and Light were safely locked inside the cupboard and if anything or anyone wanted to enter, they would make enough noise to alert him with enough time to try and do something about it or at least wake Light as well._

_Atem turned his ruby gaze towards the small little cot where the child slept and noticed with surprise that Light was still asleep and even snoring lightly. This was most strange, since the boy always woke up at the very first bang on the door, and sometimes even at the creak of the stairs that preceded said bang. Was his Light sick, perhaps? The child had gotten sick once before with a fever and hadn't woken up for almost a whole day and Atem certainly didn't want a repeat of that, it had been most unpleasant for both of them._

"_Light? Are you unwell, little one?" The Pharaoh's voice cut through the silence of the cupboard easily, but the child still didn't stir._

_Atem moved closer and tentatively placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, shaking him lightly, reluctant to use more force in case the child was indeed sick and might be hurting. One green eye opened slowly, unfocused. The child groaned as he noticed the daylight coming in through the thin space between the door and the floor and started getting up, putting his 'new' glasses on. It had been discovered last month that Light needed glasses and the Dursleys, kind people that they pretend to be, had to get him a pair, so they went and got him some at a garage sale, taking the ones that fit his needs best. They weren't exactly what he needed, but they did the job well enough._

"_Is it morning already, 'Tem?" His voice was sleepy and tired._

_The Pharaoh smiled as he did almost every time he heard that nickname. Light had started calling him that when he was still very young and had trouble speaking correctly, but had never bothered to change it even after he learned the correct version, and Atem certainly wouldn't ask him to, he rather liked it._

"_Indeed it is, and that harpy you call an aunt has already banged on the door twice, I believe" Atem frowned slightly at this, remembering his earlier worry "It is most unusual for you to sleep in, Light. Are you alright?" There was obvious worry in the Pharaoh's voice._

_The child looked down at his hands, abashed for some reason Atem couldn't guess._

"_Yeah, I just…stayed up late last night" The words left his mouth rather reluctantly._

_Ah, so that was it. The child should know better than to go to sleep late, since he had to get up early every morning to start breakfast and get ready for school. What was most curious, though, was the fact that Atem clearly remembered having seen the boy asleep before he allowed himself to rest, as he did every single night. Ruby eyes narrowed in suspicion as he stared at the child who still refused to meet his eyes._

"_Oh? And what were you doing up? I saw you sleeping before I went to sleep myself" Pause, let the message sink in and give him some time to squirm a little more under the accusing gaze "Were you even asleep then, Light, or were you pretending?"_

_The boy winced slightly. Busted. With a sigh of resignation, he started to dig into the old blankets he used to cover himself and make his cot a little less uncomfortable and finally under the cot itself. The child made a low sound of triumph and he pulled something out and held it to his chest, hiding it from Atem's view._

"_I was making these, but I had to wait 'till you went to sleep or you would have ruined the surprise" There was almost, _almost_, a tone of childish whine at the end, but Light was never one for whining so Atem knew it was only a slight complain, if that, at the possibility of the ruined surprise._

_Slowly, almost as if afraid of his reaction, the boy moved his hands away from his chest and finally extended them towards the Pharaoh, showing him what he had hidden under the cot and had spent last night making. They were pieces of paper, each being about half of a sheet from Light's small notebook that he used for school and there were drawings in there. Was that…? Atem's breath hitched as he recognized the figures in the paper. They weren't really accurate, and were childishly drawn, not masterpieces by most people's standards, but to the Pharaoh they were perfect. He brushed one finger against one of the papers, the digit going though the material thanks to his insubstantiality, his eyes still contemplating the pictures._

"_My…my Dark Magician and Curse of Dragon. Celtic Guardian, Kuriboh, Magical Hats, Mystical Elf, Monster Reborn and…is that Slifer?" There was unmistakable wonder mixed with nostalgia in his voice as he named each card as Light showed them to him one by one._

_He couldn't believe it. His favorite cards, some of which he had used since his very first Duel Monsters game, were there. Admittedly, there were only about fifteen cards, hardly a deck, and they were a bit unevenly cut, but they had been obviously made with care for detail and must have taken Light a long while to complete. Had the child slept at all last night?_

"_Um, yes…But I ran out of red crayon, so he had to be orange…I'm sorry, I know I messed that up…but I wanted them to be ready for you today and I didn't have red! And I tried to make them as I remembered from your stories, but I don't even know if I got them right!" The boy was almost panicking by the end, probably about to hyperventilate. _

_Atem's attention quickly left the handmade cards as he moved to hug the boy, who almost instantly calmed down as he drew comfort from his Darkness, just as it had always been and would always be as far as he was concerned. He had missed dueling and his deck a lot, and it would certainly be great to have his favorite cards again, but it was the fact that Light had made these for him, rather than the cards themselves, that made them so special to the Pharaoh._

"_They're great. I personally think he looks a lot better in orange. Not to mention, you make a better artist than Pegasus himself ever did" He chuckled lightly at that._

_Harry snorted, apparently disbelieving "You're just saying that. You're being patri…patrozing"_

"_Patronizing" He corrected easily, almost without noticing "And no, I'm not just saying it. I really think that" _

_Big and bright green eyes peeked up at him as Light lifted his head away from the Pharaoh's translucent shirt. Those eyes were usually cold and unfeeling to most people, and easily reminded Atem of Seto Kaiba, his once rival, but now, hidden in this cupboard where the world would never see and so never know what it was missing, they were full of childish innocence and a hint adoration._

"_Really?" _

_Atem nodded firmly, looking completely and absolutely convinced of his words, and he was._

"_Really really. Thank you, little Light, I will treasure them forever"_

_The boy smiled, looking truly and really happy, and those occasions were becoming more and more unusual as he grew up, and gave his Darkness another hug before disentangling himself and hiding the precious cards away. It was time for the day to start and for them to leave the safety of the cupboard already. But it didn't matter how cruel the world was to them today, in the end, they still had each other to rely on, and that was all they needed._

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**Author's Notes:** The cuteness of some of those scenes was almost too much for me ^_^U Atem is making Harry's childhood a little less horrible, but how great an impact will he have on the Harry we all know? Stay tuned and find out! ^_-

I had to read a few short chapters on a children development book to write this because the truth is: I don't know the first thing about children ^_^U Hopefully, that helped keep it real enough (as real as a little wizard and a long-since-dead Pharaoh sharing a soul can be XD).

Next chapter will cover the other five years of Harry's life before Hogwarts…or at least that's what I've got planned so far…I might have to divide that into two different chapters, since this one was quite long ^_^U

And now, to answer reviews! (one of my favorite parts about writing these stories XD)

**JuMiKu:** Oh, he's important for moral support, of course, but also has a bigger role. For one, his presence is bound to make changes in Harry as he grows up and also, as the stories moves on, Atem might find some new abilities and whatnot ^_- Oh, and about Ryou and Marik, well Ryou himself should have no trouble, just like Yugi, because he does have his whole soul…it's Yami Bakura and Yami Marik that will have problems unless they die with their Hikaris…or at least, that's my explanation. Hope it sort of makes sense, sometimes I confuse even myself ^_^U

**Mein Sternchen:** Thank you ^_^ Oh, Atem is slowly getting his control on his magic back, and put together with Harry's own magic, they should make quite the powerful duo when Harry grows up ^^

**The elusive shadow:** Thank you ^^ Yeah, I intend for them to have a sort of sibling relationship, but a really strong one, sort of like Kaiba and Mokuba I suppose ^_^ Ah, an about Dumbledore, yes, he's going to be manipulative and all, but certainly not evil. The man does what he does because he honestly thinks it's for the best, only not always for the Harry's best, and he _is _a master strategist…should be fun to see him contend against another such master, like Atem XD

**Molto Alesato:** I'm more scared to see his reaction to Snape…won't that be fun to write? XD

**Sweetcars12:** To be perfectly honest, I don't really know. I'm still trying to decide on that, but this early on the story my mind changes like every ten minutes, so it's hard to make a choice ^_^U

**Pixie dust of doom:** Thank you ^_^ Yeah, I think it's a mix of Atem actually knowing who he is and the fact that there's no Puzzle here for the spirit to hide in ^^U

**Smoochynose:** Eh…I'm mentally scarred at the picture of those two XD And about pairings, they haven't been decided yet but I can assure you it won't be Harry/Atem in this one. There might not even be pairings at all…I'm not sure yet.

**Reading4soul:** Thank you ^_^ I've fixed the typos now, I think I got them all XD Oh, Yugi was the Dark? I've _gotta _read that story…you know its name, by any chance? ^^

**CH0C0CANDYZ:** Trust me, the Dursleys are going the get quite an _interesting_ life with Atem around and trying to protect little Harry.

And a big Thank you to **everyone** who reviewed. Really, that sort of thing is what keeps me happily writing ^_^


	4. Growing Up Part II

**Light and Darkness**

Chapter Four

_Growing Up Part II_

**Warning:** Child abuse and neglect in this chapter, read at your own risk.

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Life carried on for everyone, even for the little boy and long-since dead Pharaoh that was his only companion and the years went by in the Dursley household, each bringing changes and surprises with them, perhaps not always pleasant but necessary in the end.

Atem started teaching Light about magic and control when the boy turned seven years old, and attempting to teach such a young child about meditation was quite the chore even for someone with a patience as great as the Pharaoh's, children were simply not meant to stay still and quiet for so long. Fortunately, Light had always been an attentive and dedicated student and managed to start looking inside himself after only two or so months of preparation.

The boy had been positively ecstatic when he first took a glimpse at the shinning and warm light that was his magic core, and had babbled on and on about the wonderful thing that was magic for half the night before Atem managed to convince him that even little magicians needed their sleep. Still, as excited as the child was about this new discovery, he was always very careful to keep the secret of his magic well-hidden, having heard more than enough of Atem's warnings about what might happen should anyone, especially his so-called family, discover that particular ability of his.

And, as it always was with Light, the boy soon started to crave more knowledge about magic, until the point where he finally asked his Darkness about Shadow magic. Atem had been very, very tempted to simply deny the young one any knowledge on this particular subject and insist that Light had no need to trouble himself with this kind of magic, but he knew better than anyone that Light would probably take that to mean that the Pharaoh didn't think him worthy of learning such magic and would only become more driven to learn it, on his own and without anyone watching out for him if necessary. Needless to say, it was far safer to just teach the boy the basics and then attempt to convince him that his own natural magic was the better option of the two.

And so Atem began to repeat to Light some of what he remembered taking in magic lessons when he was a young Prince, studying with Mahaad and Mana in the Palace in preparation for the day he would become a ruler. He obviously didn't teach the child anything that might be considered too dangerous, but with Shadow magic involved, everything had at least the potential to turn into danger and so every lesson was accompanied with at least half an hour of warnings and cautions, much to the little magician's dismay.

Due to the constant practice with their magic, Atem's own control of Shadow magic finally began to increase and that was the year he finally noticed the magic surrounding their living space. It was very subtle and easily to dismiss unless you were paying close attention, but the Pharaoh soon discovered that at least half of the block was being covered with some sort of spell, with their house right in the middle of it. He didn't inform Light of this right away, knowing that the boy would get all curious and would probably insist on investigating the issue himself. Instead, the Darkness started to probe and prod the magic carefully whenever he could spare a moment away from Light. In the end he decided that, whatever the spell was, it did not have any malicious intent and could therefore stay until it proved a liability, mostly because he was not willing to mess with spells he was not sure would react to his Shadows.

Unknown to him, his decision to leave what he didn't know were wards protecting them might have very well saved his Light's life from the unfriedlies still roaming around.

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The year after the magic lessons started, when Light turned eight, brought the very first magical incident of the boy's life.

It was by now usual for Light to be chased all the way from school to the house by Dudley and his little gang of unruly children. Those boys were heading straight for juvenile hall when they got older, as far as Atem was concerned. So far they had never caught up with the fast little bugger that was Light when he put his mind to escaping torture, but their luck was about to run out.

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**Flashback**

_The raven-haired child was running as fast as ever, Atem by his side, casting dark looks at the pack of children that could not even see him, now almost halfway to the refuge of his cupboard._

_Since this had been happening every single day for at least a couple of months, Light did not seem at all worried that they would catch up to him and was in fact grinning rather wildly, enjoying being able to keep away from his pursuers and leading them on such a merry little chase. The Pharaoh noticed this and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully._

"_You should be more focused on getting away and less on enjoying having to escape from these miniature menaces" The Pharaoh scolded lightly, wary of his little Light becoming too arrogant and dropping his guard. Such things had happened to Atem before and the results were never pleasant._

_Light snorted in replay, taking a big gulp of air before speaking "Nah, they'll never catch up with me, never do, never will. I'm way too fast for them" The child stated, turning back to catch a glimpse of the now puffing and panting boys that were still vainly trying to follow him._

_Unfortunately for him, his distraction soon proved to be a mistake. Atem, whose gaze was focused on Light himself and not the world around them barely had time to catch movement out of the corner of his eye before another boy, one who had only just began to hang around Dudley and the other little demons, jumped out from behind a bush and tackled the unaware Light to the ground._

_Both children went tumbling down, but Light fell first, hitting the floor and having the other boy fall on top of him. The young black-haired boy only had time to squeak a startled sound before the bigger child had sat on him, keeping him down and unmoving._

"_Hurry up! I got him! I got him!" The other child exclaimed delightfully to the pack of children now making their way towards them. _

_Both Light and Darkness shared a look of panic as the others approached and Atem, ready to defend his other half even against these young ones, soon prepared himself to use his Shadows on the bigger boy to give Light the chance to escape before this got ugly._

_The little magician soon enough noticed what his darker half was up to and, with enough desperation on his voice that he made both Atem and the other boy freeze called to the Spirit "Don't! Not here, someone will notice!" There was genuine fear in his voice, not to mention the child's emerald green eyes, and the poor Pharaoh could do nothing more than listen to him and release his hold on the Shadows._

_It had always been one of Light's greatest fears that someone would find out about Atem and take him away forever. The Pharaoh had tried to explain time and time again that no one but the gods themselves could ever break a bond as strong as theirs, that there was no way Atem was ever going away without Light making him, if even then, but a child's fear is rarely reasonable and no matter how grown up Light acted, he was still a child._

_It was that fear that brought him to plead to his guardian to let him suffer if only to keep their secret, and it honestly broke the Pharaoh's heart, but he listened nonetheless, willing to respect Light's wishes for as long as he could._

_The other boy looked at Ligth strangely, his eyes a mix of confusion and a bit of fear. "You really are a freak, Potter. Should be in the nuthouse, you should" The other child's teasing and cruel words meant very little to Light, who was used to far worse from him relatives._

_It was the arrival of the other children that did bring an almost tangible sense of fear to the poor boy. Atem had to restrain himself from locking the lot of them in the Shadow Realm forever when they started to surround his poor Light, like a pack of wolves intent on tearing apart a little lamb. Not that Light was a lamb, for usually the boy could defend himself better than an angry jackal, but in these circumstances and against these odds, there was very little even a fiery one like Light could do._

"_Thought you could keep getting away, did you, freaky?" Dudley's voice rang out, still with a note of huffing and puffing, and was answered with cruel and, in Atem's opinion, stupid laughs from his little entourage. "How you gonna run now, eh?" _

_Green eyes, which always looked at Atem with warmth, turned almost frosty as they looked with the other boy's watery blue ones. A couple of the children, including Dudley himself, flinched away from the hateful look the smaller boy sent them, obviously at least a little frightened._

"_He was talking to himself, Dudley, all crazy-like" The boy still sitting on top of the little magician stated, sinking his knee in the smaller child's back until he grunted in pain just for good measure. _

"_He _is_ all crazy-like, my dad says so. Even has an imaginary friend he speaks to all the time" Dudley stated, having apparently recovered from his little elapse of cowardice to once again tease his cousin and make his stupid little friends laugh at the smaller one. _

_The obese boy that was his lighter half's cousin stepped on said lighter half's hand in a malicious attempt to cause harm, which he obviously did, being as heavy as he was and Light as small and delicate as he had always been. The smaller boy let out a cry of pain, but refused to let any tears fall or any sobbing begin, he was not going to show weakness to these bullies. _

"_My mom says she's gonna send him with the other crackpots until he stops seeing things and having imaginary friends, but she doesn't think he will ever be normal, all freak as he is" Dudley said, now moving to kick his cousin's head while the other children once again laughed stupidly at something they probably didn't even understand._

_The obese boy didn't have a chance to inflict more damage, however, as that was the moment Light finally reacted to his words. Only then did it sink into Atem what those words meant to his little Light. _'Until he stops seeing things and having imaginary friends'_. Light was now convinced his Aunt was going to try and take his Darkness away, the only person in this Ra-forsaken world who listened, who cared, who actually gave a rat's behind what happened to him. And, in desperation, anger and grief, the child reacted…or rather, the child's magic reacted._

_It started as a faded glow on the surface of the boy's skin and clothes that the other children soon noticed, Dudley pausing mid-kick to stare stupidly. In just a couple of seconds the glow had turned to something akin to cackling electricity, snapping angrily at their toes and legs just one second before the whole thing blew up into a wave of colorful energy, sending the children flying away from the still laying Light and then crashing to the ground painfully._

_Atem moved far faster than he could remember being able to, crouching down next to Light and hugging the boy tightly. "She's not going to take me away, little one, no one can take me away from you. Light and Darkness, we are always together, it is the way it was always meant to be. I'm here, Light, I will always be here"_

_The Pharaoh's comforting words took a moment or two to make any sort of effect on the poor traumatized boy, who turned to look at his Darkness with such a lost look in his eyes that the Spirit felt guilty for being the reason of such reaction._

_Soon enough the other children started to groan and get up, startled and frightened looks being sent their way. Needless to say, Light knew enough about how this whole thing looked that he didn't even wait for Atem to direct him before bolting away, going in a completely different path then the one that would take them home. _

_There was simply no way they could return to the Dursleys now, not after having attacked their precious little baby whale with magic, of all things. The Pharaoh knew, and Light obviously did to, that the small child would likely be beaten half to death and then left to travel the other half of the way by himself, and so they both understood that now they would be forced to go with the child's earlier plan of running away. The Pharaoh did not like it in the least, for he very much doubted that an eight year old with an ancient spirit for company could make it in the world alone, but there was no way he was going to risk Light's life with the Dursleys now. And so, they ran._

_That night was spent in the park, hiding inside one of the tube slides at the playground to try and keep away from the chilly air. Atem spent that night completely awake, reprimanding himself for not going about the whole thing different, for not being able to protect his Light and for having no way to keep the child warm and safe tonight._

_The next morning Light insisted that they had to sneak back into the Dursley home to 'rescue' their belongings and perhaps some food and money. Atem had adamantly protested this until the child rather boldly pointed out that there was no way he would make it without blankets, food and money, not to mention that they had left their precious cards hidden inside the cupboard. And so it was a rather fearful child and very reluctant dead Pharaoh that sneaked inside the house through the kitchen door, knowing Aunt Petunia always left it open when she was inside the house. It was quite the chore to get all the way into the cupboard when the annoying woman was still inside the house, but they waited until she was upstairs before even trying. _

_Quickly and with an efficiency that belied his years, Light packed everything he might need from his cupboard inside one of his ratty old blankets before leaving the tiny little heaven once again. So busy was he trying to keep everything inside form slipping out the few holes in the blanket that only at the last moment did he notice the tapping foot in front of him and so, the woman standing just outside the cupboard. Cold dread filled both him and Atem when they discovered Aunt Petunia there, frowning and glaring at the poor child._

"_There you are, you lazy little freak, hiding to keep from going to school like all the normal children no doubt. Well? Get out of there and start your chores, if you are not going to school then you are going to pull your weight around here, and no freaky business!" And with that final screech threatening to burst their eardrums, the woman simply marched away._

_It might have been funny to watch the Light and Darkness doing their best impersonations of a fish was the situation not so very strange. For the rest of the day they both walked on eggshells around the Dursleys, but none of them seemed to know about the incident from yesterday, not even Dudley seemed to remember, since he was brave enough to punch Light a multitude of times._

_With all this suspicious business going on, Atem took his sweet time to watch Light's family very carefully, making good use of his invisibility. In the end it was Light himself who noticed the 'taste' of magic hanging around his relatives. Now Dudley might still be carrying some residue from yesterday's burst but there was no way it had affected the Aunt and Uncle and so the two came to the conclusion that this was the work of another magician._

"_Why, though? Why help me making them forget but leaving me here? They are like me, 'Tem, magic like me and they have to know about the Dursleys if they helped but they still leave us here, why?" Light asked that night, once they were safely back inside the cupboard and trying to find some rest even though of all the troubling thoughts they both had. _

_The Pharaoh shook his head sadly, resigned "I do not understand this anymore than you do, Light. I always thought if we found more magicians they would take you in, teach you're their ways perhaps, that is how it was done back in Egypt as I remember" _

_And indeed, that had always been Atem's hope for Light, that some magician would find them and help them get away from the suffering that the child went through in this place, but now it was obvious that this was never going to happen. The magicians had found them, and left them on their own again. And it was clear to Atem and Light then and there that there was not going to be any outside help here, that if they were going to make it, they would have to make it on their own. And after some careful thought, they realized it was fine by them because in the end, during this life, it had always been just them against the world._

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After that incident, Atem finally told Light about the spell that surrounded their home. Needless to say, the boy had not been happy to be kept in the dark and after at least twenty minutes of angry ranting had managed to make his Darkness promise never to hide something like this from him again. Still, they did nothing about the spell and refused to acknowledge the existence of the other magicians.

Still, the revelation that his own people didn't seem to care obviously had an impact in Light, making the boy even more mistrustful and wary of people, not to mention bitter about the whole situation. It was clear that he felt betrayed and considered this one betrayal too many, choosing instead to once again clamp down and keep away from anyone but his dear Darkness. Atem would have been worried had he not been as equally disappointed in the magicians as his Light was.

If anything good came from the whole experience it was the fact that soon enough the two learned that anytime Light's magic was used on the Dursleys or any other person, the people affected soon forgot the whole deal and the effects were reversed. Obviously some magicians were working hard to keep the secret of magic away from normal people and this included cleaning any messes a magical child like Light might make. This discovery was basically an invitation to use as much magic as they wanted.

Now, normally Atem would be extremely cautions and wary of using magic just like that, but as Light grew older, the way his relatives treated him became worse and worse and so self-defense had to be employed. It started as little things, like a small discomfort every time the boy received a smack, food unexplainably going bad just as they placed in their mouth when the little magician was starved for too long, subtle things that the other magicians erased from their memories anyways. It soon escalated to outright summoning of Shadows when the boy's uncle got a little too rough with him, usually courtesy of Atem but occasionally and accident from Light, the boy didn't yet have too much control of his own Shadows.

After a few months of this, the other magicians seemed to get tired of having to memory-wipe the Dursleys every day or so and started to only erase the more noticeable things, while leaving the smaller, subtler ones there. At first Atem insisted that Light stop using his magic now that his relatives could recall the incidents, but as the boy was quick to point out, the fear and wariness they showed now that they could remember made them treat him a lot better than they usually did and so the Dursleys were kept at bay with an occasional, usually weekly, display of subtle magic.

That is not to say that things got better, oh no, the Dursleys were even more resentful and hateful towards the poor boy, but their fear of the child's magic and 'that lot' kept them from being too unbearable as they pretty much kept their abuse verbal and that was nothing Light was not used to by now. Atem was careful though, to keep Light's magical doings from turning violent or plainly hostile towards his relatives or anyone else, wary that the child might fall into darkness if he allowed such things. It was decidedly bizarre, a Darkness trying to keep their Light just that, light, but it had to be done lest the boy turn evil in time. Not that such would truly matter to Atem in the end, Light would always be his charge and friend, his brother if their relationship could be called something as mundane, no matter what path he walked, but the Pharaoh would prefer to keep him from turning out like Marik, for example.

Atem could still remember the first time Light first showed any real violence towards someone. It was not a nice memory, but one that the Pharaoh kept close to the surface of his mind, a constant reminder of how things might turn out if he wasn't careful.

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**Flashback**

_Light was now nine years old, although due to the way he was malnourished the poor child didn't look much older than seven. A year had passed since the revelation of the other magicians' existence and since then Light had been practicing his magic more and more freely, most of the time on his relatives with a few exceptions for bullies at school and the like. While this made him gain strength and control of his gift, it also ostracized him even more from his peers. The other children were quick to notice the strange things that happened around him and kept their distance even more than usual, afraid now of both Light himself and the boy's aggressive cousin. Not that the little magician actually minded, since he had grown perfectly content to stay away from other children who didn't understand him._

_Still, life was definitely better than before, what with the Dursleys all wary of even approaching Light for more than a few seconds at most. This meant that Light and Darkness could have some peace of mind while inside the house, or even better, spend time outside. Aunt Petunia had apparently decided that she wanted to spend as little time as possible near her nephew and so insisted that the boy spend whatever time he had free of chores anywhere he pleased so long as it was out of her immaculate house. The boy didn't mind at all and actually enjoyed these times away from the restrictive environment of Number Four Privet Drive._

_That afternoon they had decided to visit the park, bringing with them their collection of hand-made Duel Monster cards. Said collection had grown through the years when Light decided that every year they would celebrate their birthdays the same day and get more cards for themselves as present. The pictures in said cards had also gotten progressively more detailed and generally better as time passed and Light's artistic abilities shone through. Atem would always feel proud of himself for encouraging this gift and not letting it go to waste by disuse, completely convinced that his Light could someday be a world-famous artist if he put his mind to it._

_What started as a peaceful visit to the local park to spend some time playing their favorite game soon turned into catastrophe, as things for some reason tended to around them. As almost always, the local gang of bullies was patrolling the park and bothering the younger kids, but Light was perfectly content to leave them be so long as they didn't bother him. Fortunately, since Dudley was current alpha dog of the little pack and he was still quite wary of his cousin, they didn't go after him too much these days, so he ignored them and kept to his own business._

_Just a few minutes after they had first arrived at the park, the two half-souls were startled out of a rather complicated and amazingly entertaining duel by the sound of another child crying. Ruby and emerald eyes turned at the same time to watch a young girl, probably five or six years old being pushed to the ground by one of the annoying bullies while another one tore what seemed to be a teddy bear to pieces. The girl was obviously the gang's current victim._

_Light felt bad for the poor girl, having been on the receiving side of the gang's bullying far longer than he cared to remember, but it was simply not in his personality to get involved in something that did not concern him. So long as the bullies didn't bother him, he tended to stay out of their way._

_Atem, on the other hand, had never really been able to tolerate such injustice and barbarism. It was probably a leftover from his days as Pharaoh, trying to keep justice and fairness in his Kingdom and all that, but whatever it was, it was not something he could truly help._

"_Should we not do something, Light?" The Pharaoh asked, for the moment completely forgetting about instructing his little charge on moving his cards for him. It was hard to have a duel when you were incorporeal and even harder to focus on it while watching the ongoing bullying._

"_What for?" The boy replied, focusing intently on his cards and obviously trying very hard to ignore the girl's crying "No one ever gets involved when it's me that's in her place, why should I bother?" The genuine bitterness in the child's voice brought a fresh wave of concern in Atem._

"_Because it is the right thing to do. When it was you, did you not wish for someone to come and aid you? She must be feeling the same and in the end, she will be as disappointed as you were. Would you not like to prevent such disappointment?" The red-eyed monarch stated, clearly trying to tempt his Light into doing what he considered right._

_The words were true and Light knew it. Even though of his social segregation, the child knew the difference between right and wrong and he understood that you were supposed to help those who could not help themselves. All this he had learned from Atem, through stories and tales of the Pharaoh's past lives. However, just because he knew this it did not mean he had to like it._

"_Fine then" The boy finally huffed in response, leaving his cards on the ground and making his way towards the boys now completely surrounding the poor girl and her destroyed toy. He was going to regret this and he knew it, but there was no way he could stand having Atem disappointed in him because of his lack of action. If there was one person Light would never, ever want to fail, it was Atem._

"_Alright then, that's enough" The raven-haired child stated with far more courage than he had, managing to keep his voice steady and strong, drawing comfort from the invisible spirit now standing behind him. "You've had your fun already, now leave her alone" The boy's emerald eyes narrowed angrily as he stated this._

_The boys and even the little girl all seemed startled at this and it took a couple of second before there was any kind of reaction to the bold declaration. Sadly, it was not the reaction Light was hoping for. The boy laughed snidely, pointing towards him and unable to speak because of the laughter. Light felt whatever courage he had managed to scrounge up slowly leave him, being replaced by a cold sinking feeling. This was not good._

"_You think you're a hero, Potter? Then come and save your girlfriend!" More laughter followed that as one of the boys roughly pulled the girl up by her arms and threw her to one of his mates, who only shoved her towards another as though they were playing some bizarre game of ball. _

_Seeing the girl's honest fear and pain gave Light his courage back, and probably reduced his inhibitions enough to make him do what he did next. For at least the next few months he would curse his stupidity and recklessness, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. He punched one of the boys straight in the face. For a moment, everything froze and the world stopped moving, Light himself stopped breathing. And then the spell was broken and chaos got loose._

_The other boys left the girl forgotten as they moved to avenge their fallen friend, who was now on the ground clutching his face in pain and crying quite loudly. Light unfroze just as quickly and used his superior speed and small size to move away from punching fists and kicking legs, managing even to land one or two hits of his own in the confusion of the moment._

_Atem also reacted soon enough, worried about getting his Light away from the current tangle of limbs that were the fighting boys. He very carefully released his Shadows, not willing to really use his magic against children, even those as spoiled and nasty as this particular bunch. The Shadows merely gripped a couple of boys by their ankles and yanked them away from Light, but the feeling of cold dread that accompanied them was more than enough to make a few of the boys run as fast as they could. Atem would later curse himself for not watching where exactly they ran to._

_In the whole chaos of the thing no one noticed one of the older boys get to the spot that had been Light's and Atem's just before this whole ordeal started and hastily pick up the scattered cards that were the emerald-eyed child's treasure and pride. _

"_Hey, Potter!" The boy exclaimed at the top of his lungs. The squirming mass of limbs that were the gang and Light still fighting stopped moving for a second, all eyes trained on the shouting boy. Emerald green widened with fear and alarm as he noticed his most valued possessions being held so carelessly in an enemy's hands. _

_The other boy sneered hatefully. "To teach you not to mess with us" He stated coldly before cruelly ripping at least four of the cards in half. By the look on the boy's face he obviously enjoyed seeing the horror plaster itself on Light's own expression._

_The little magician had never experienced such an amount of hate and anger as he felt right then and there. His limbs trembled with the strength of a negative emotion much too big for someone so small, his eyes tightly shut and refusing to see the horrifying sight of such destruction. He could feel something creeping up inside of him, filling him to the brim and threatening to explode anytime now. Usually he would have recognized it and attempted to keep such a thing from happening but right now he was much too busy truly hating for the first time to pay attention to something like this._

_Atem understood it was much too late to prevent the coming explosion and only had enough time to put of a shield of Shadows around the other children before Light's own Shadows exploded out of his small body, threatening to consume everything around him. Unfortunately Atem had not been close enough to the boy responsible for this whole thing to actually include him in the hastily-made shield. The Shadows attacked the boy viciously, tearing at his skin and soul with a strength that should not be possible from things summoned by such a young caster. Light did realize what he was doing, he understood that he could very well end up killing the other boy, but at the moment, he did not care._

_The cold look of understanding and approval in the child's emerald eyes snapped Atem out of his horrified trance and made him do something he never thought he would do. The Pharaoh turned his own Shadows against his Light, commanding them to merely wrap and restrain the child until enough coherency was back in him that he could come back to himself. Light seemed surprised and more than a little betrayed at the sudden attack, and this snapped him away from his focus in his Shadows, thus ending the attack on the other boy. As soon as that happened, Atem commanded his Shadows away and back to their Realm, freeing Light once more. _

_The boy's green eyes looked scared and guilty as they looked into his guardian's red gaze and it only took a couple of seconds before the boy bolted as though the spirits of Kul-Elna themselves were after him, leaving behind and forgotten a troubled Pharaoh and treasured cards._

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Needless to say, it had been at least a week before Light had forgiven Atem for what he did, but the boy even ended up apologizing for the viciousness of his attack, though not for the attack itself. Luckily, the other magicians seemed to consider this something big enough to be completely erased and the idiotic boy who had provoked Light was back in good health and completely ignorant of what had happened by the next day, same as all the other witnesses.

After that, Atem focused more in control and less in casting during their lessons, stressing the importance of always being in control of both the Shadows and one's self, lest something like that or worse happen again. Light didn't really like the change, but he was repentant enough that he put his everything into trying to gain control of his abilities.

Also after the destruction of some of his beloved cards Light took the opportunity to create more and even improved versions of the ones they already had. Art supplies would mysteriously go missing at school and then appear at their cupboard, where the boy would work at night in his new creations. Atem only wished the child would show the same dedication and care he showed to the cards to people, but there really is only so much you can ask.

By the time Light turned ten they already had a whole deck, with Atem had carefully inspected and modified before giving his complete approval. It had several of the cards his and Yugi's own deck had had, but a good portion of it was entirely Light, making this a whole new deck with whole new possibilities and potential. It really was a shame that the game didn't exist in this reality and so only the two of them could play it, the Pharaoh would have loved to duel alongside Light against different opponents.

In the end, Light had decided that he would completely recreate the game someday, to introduce it in this world and start Duel Monsters from zero here. They both knew that it was likely an impossible dream, since such an endeavor would take an amount of money they could never get on their own and getting any sort of financial support would be very hard for Light, even if he was able to show his true potential in school, which he could not. Still, it was a nice dream to have and one that kept the Pharaoh hopeful of someday being able to share his love for dueling with others besides Light.

Unknown to both of them, their dream was closer to their grasp that they would ever believe and that same dream would probably change aspects of this world in way they never even considered, but that part of the tale doesn't come until another time.

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**Author's Notes:** First of all…I am very, very , VERY sorry for the long wait for this chapter, not to mention my lack of updating in "_Sons of Ra_". It's not really an excuse, but I got a job and have been focusing on it a lot, it's what pays for my current obsession with Yu-Gi-Oh! (man, those cards can get expensive…) so yeah. But anyways, I'll be trying to update at least a little more regularly.

On another, much happier note, to answer some reviews ^_^:

**Smoochynose:** I'll just say this…. ;D

**Sakurademonalchemist:** Tempting…very, very tempting. I'm kind of fearing the reaction Atem will have once he discovers Dumble's manipulations and disregards for the Durselys' hatred ^^U

**Sweetcars12**: Thanks ^_^ You know, that idea for the drawings is rather good, I made a comment about this to one of my younger cousins, to make them really child-like, she's 8 and she says she wants to try. Cute kid, she is ^_^

**Molto Alesato**: Oh, now you are seriously tempting my more chaotic writing tendencies to the surface….the possibilities *rubs hands together like a dangerous maniac* XD

**Pixie dust of doom:** *nod nod* Exactly! That's why I found the whole thing rather interesting, because it seems so…contrary, I guess, that a Harry who had no one was softer towards the world than a Light who does have someone. Sad thing is, it does happen that way in some cases, according to what I've read, it all has to do with the fact that all Harry wanted was friends and family, but Light on the other side has learned to depend on Atem and doesn't really want or need anyone other than his Dark. XD

**DarkLadyIreth**: I would really like it if he had his own body, but if it does happen, then it will be a surprise ^_-

**Magician Girl Mirani:** Thankies ^_^ Ah, well, for the animagus form I am really very tempted to give him one, because I fell in love with the idea of animagi since reading PoA for the first time, but since this version of Harry already has different powers, I'm not sure if that would be overdoing it, so we'll see ^^. As for friends, all I'm going to say is that there will be some changes, but no more than that, my lips are sealed! (^_^U). And about Atem's summoning, well, there has to be a reason those cards Light made will be so important, ne? ;)

**Mabidiso**: Thank you ^_^ Well, as the saying goes, people tend to fear what they don't understand, and there is no way Dumbles can ever understand Light or his connection to Atem ^_^U

**Shinigami Clara**: Thank you ^^ I'm actually more worried about how Light will take it, since the kid is a little overprotective of Atem and was basically raised Egyptian, since a Pharaoh did most of the raising. I actually have a nice little scene all thought up for that XD

And a big Thank you to **everyone** who reviewed. Really, that sort of thing is what keeps me happily writing ^_^


	5. Madness and Darkness

**Light and Darkness**

Chapter Five

_Madness and Darkness_

**Warning:** This chapter contains extreme and rather explicit violence. Read at your own risk. If you wish to skip it, it is the third section of the chapter, marked by the divisions.

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It was a day like any other day, not really special or different in any sort of way. Well, it _was_ Dudley's birthday, but neither Atem nor Light considered that anywhere near interesting enough to be considered special, and so paid it no mind and were more than willing to go about their day as though it were any other day.

Not Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, though. Oh, no, those two had gone through all sorts of measures – most of them extremely exaggerated, in Atem's opinion – to ensure that their 'precious little Dudders' would have the most fantastic birthday of his life. Of course, it was the same every year and the pair inhabiting the cupboard had grown accustomed to it.

It didn't even start all that different from any other day, with Aunt Petunia yelling at him to wake up and someone making enough noise to wake the dead – although, admittedly, it was Dudley stomping down the stair instead of the shrill-voiced woman banging on the door, but that hardly made enough difference.

Finally, and rather groggily, Light made his way of the cupboard, still rubbing his eyes and grumbling rather irritably. The once Pharaoh followed after him, chuckling rather amusedly at the young boy's grumpy way to start the day.

The whole family went through the birthday ritual, which included present-opening for the mini whale known as Dudley, gushing and cooing and generally acting idiotic for the two supposedly only adults of the house, a lot of cleaning and cooking for Light, and regular attempts at cheering up the green-eyed child for Atem.

As used as they were to this happening every single year, it seemed the whole thing was still not any easier for Light. The boy understood – from a frighteningly young age – that his relatives didn't give a damn about him, they didn't love him and they didn't even want him, and he was generally content to leave it at that, especially since he had his beloved Dark with him. But once a year, when Dudley was being literarily showered with presents and affections while all Light received was disinterest if not outright hostility. It was enough to make the boy angry and – even Atem would reluctantly admit – quite a little bit hateful.

The child was currently sweeping the living room floor, which looked like a positive war zone with all the mutilated little bits of wrapping paper carpeting the floor and invading the furniture, while his 'family' – and the term was used loosely in this context – were enjoying their breakfast in the kitchen and discussing the plans for later. Their conversation was completely uninteresting and positively boring – especially considering that it was bound to only include the three of them – and so neither Light nor Darkness paid it any mind.

This changed when Atem managed to overhear one tiny little fragment of conversation.

"But she can't take him today!" The harpy-woman's voice sounded positively whiny as she stated this.

Atem would have normally ignored her shrill-voiced outburst and gone back to his silent watching of Light, was it not because he knew what the family was discussing. Every year so far, they had taken Dudley and sometimes a couple of his friends on a little trip to someplace the boys would have fun, like an amusement park or the movie theater, and Light – and by default, Atem – was always left with an elderly neighbor and her many cats to be babysat.

The ancient spirit didn't really mind the cat-lady all that much, to tell the truth. Sure, she was a little weird and unnerved Light a bit, but she was much nicer than the Dursley family. She had never once so much as smacked the boy upside the head, she occasionally offered him a piece of bread or cake and she paid attention to the boy – which admittedly was to introduce him to her many cats, but still. Plus there was also the fact that the Pharaoh liked cats, they were very intelligent, cunning and useful animals and had been very valued back in his days as King.

But back to the present. Atem knew that Light's annoying aunt was very likely talking about that old cat-lady, Mrs. Figg, and if she was stating that the woman would not be able to take Light in today – as he was guessing, and hoping, was what she meant – then it could be very probable that his ward would be either having a peaceful day home alone with only his Dark or that the boy would finally get to go out of his dreary neighborhood and enjoy some of the outside world. The spirit wasn't all that hopeful for the second, but either option would mean no Dursleys and that got his interest.

He quietly left Light's side and made his way to the kitchen to do some perhaps-undignified-but-certainly-necessary eavesdropping, thanking his invisibility for what felt like the thousandth time – and still, he cursed it ten time more than he thanked it.

It was less than five minutes later when a decidedly smug-looking Pharaoh made his way back to the living room and his still working Light. The boy could feel his Darkness' mood before he even saw the once Pharaoh and turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

"What's got you in such a happy mood?" He asked the spirit, his voice almost a whisper since he didn't want to risk his relative listening to him talk to 'himself'…again.

The Pharaoh looked even smugger at that, if possible, and made a vague wave of his hand as if to dismiss the whole things as unimportant.

"Oh, nothing, nothing at all" He made a very short but dramatic pause before continuing, and Light could even _hear_ the smirk the other was displaying "I was only about to inform you that you should hurry this up if you want to finish in time. You, my dear Light, are going to the zoo" Stated the voice that only Light could hear.

The boy became a positive tornado of cleaning afterwards.

Maybe it wasn't such a usual day, after all.

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Okay, so it was not a usual day _at all_.

The trip to the London Zoo had gone off rather as expected…mostly. The family, plus one boy who Atem really could not bother himself with remembering the name of, had gotten into the car and drove rather peacefully to the city. Light was quiet the whole time, sharing a couple of discretely excited looks with the spirit of the once Pharaoh every once in a while and wishing fervently that he had mastered telepathy by now.

It was strange, Atem had decided a long time ago, that he and Light could not communicate with their minds alone the way he had with Yugi. They could feel each other's emotions and general status, but the link didn't seem to cover thoughts. It had been speculated between the two of them that perhaps it was simply because Light was too young and that he would have to mature some more before his mind could handle a telepath link. Atem, though, secretly wondered if his mind communication with Yugi had been a natural part of a Light-Dark link or simply something helped along by the presence of the Puzzle. If it was the Puzzle's doing then there simply was no hope of ever mind-speaking with Light now, because the Items were lost…and lost in a dimension different from this one.

The car was finally parked, driving the ex Pharaoh's thoughts away from the intricacies of the Millennium Items and telepathy.

In the zoo Light had gotten to gawk at a whole lot of animals, bears and tigers, zebras and hippos, the whole lot; or he would have if, indeed, Light were childish enough to gawk. As it was, he merely stared rather interestedly at the creatures while listening to Atem's running commentary on the beasts he had seen in his life – or either of his lives – and what he knew of them. It was sort of like having a personal tour guide that no one else could see or hear and, as with anything involving Atem, Light rather enjoyed it.

The trip was coming to an end when they finally entered the reptile house, where the zoo kept every sort of reptile from lizard to crocodile and of course quite a few snakes. Light had never seen a live snake before, so he was mildly interested in seeing them.

This is the part where the unexpected happened.*

Light had been rather intently watching a boa constrictor – and absently listening to Atem say that this particular reptile was much bigger than any snake, normal snake that is, that he had ever seen – when his cousin once again got it into his head to attack the raven-haired child. With both Light and Dark distracted, no one warned the boy of the impending strike as his rotund cousin roughly tackled him to the ground.

The shock of suddenly finding himself on the floor and hurting seemed enough to trigger Light's magical abilities despite whether or not the child willed it, and the magic lashed out to seek revenge. Light and Atem could only watch as the glass that separated the enormous slithering reptile from the fat blonde boy disappeared completely and said boy fell into the tank of said enormous reptile. The two mentally winced at the same time as they thought of the consequences. This was not going to be pretty.

The snake fortunately seemed to deem Dudley unimportant enough to be ignored and instead slithered out of its tank and into the reptile house's floor, passing just a couple of inches away from Light – and making Atem start to pull Shadows closer, if it became necessary to dissect a giant snake – all the while hissing rather excitedly as it looked at Light before it went on its merry way, leaving behind a relieved Pharaoh and a boy who sort of wished he could understand whatever the snake had said to him.

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When they finally were back home – and Light would much rather use the term 'prison' – both the boy and his invisible guardian knew better than to expect the Dursleys to simple forgive this incident and go about their daily lives. Oh, no, there would be punishment for this for sure and Light would have to pay for his little slip up…most likely in blood, much to the distress of his Dark.

It was, however, a whole different thing to expect something to happen and to actually have it happen. And this was also a whole lot different than any of the other bouts of violence Vernon Dursley seemed to fall in whenever confronted with his nephew.

It was brutal.

The man barely waited for his wife and son to go upstairs before he threw the green-eyed boy savagely against a wall, the sound almost echoing around them from the strength of the hit and mixing with the absolutely awful sound of a pained groan from the child. The obscenely obese man then proceeded to kick the already felled child, right in the ribs, and the sound now included a tormented scream from the boy that followed the almost inaudible but still somehow entirely too loud crack of a bone.

Atem could bare it no longer; he would bear it no longer. The Pharaoh's crimson gaze burned with a vengeful intensity the likes of which he had not displayed since the earliest days of his release form the Puzzle. He felt dark, murderous and usually unwanted thoughts creep into his mind, and he could hear the Shadows whisper tantalizing promises of death and revenge for his enemies in his ear, their power flowing into his spirit-body and feeding his own darkness.

"Don't!" Came the voice of Light, frightened and pained but still strong of will.

Vernon scoffed at the child, thinking that the plea was meant for him, to stop hurting the boy that he hated so irrationally.

"I'll teach you, boy! I'll teach you to mess with my family!" The man cried angrily, spittle flying everywhere as he yelled. "Should have drowned you when I found you in my doorstep!" The man's eyes glinted in insanity as he shouted, and it made the boy's blood run cold.

The boy's plea had not been meant for Vernon, but only the child and his Dark knew that. Atem stopped his descent into murderous madness with a reluctance that he had never felt before when dealing with his darker nature. He was actually regretting not being able to brutally torture and murder this man.

The sinful creature who dared to hate his Light continued to terribly abuse the boy.

He stomped into his left hand. Bone cracked. Shadows gathered. _Don't!_

He lifted him by the hair. A chunk of silky raven strands was torn off, making the scalp bleed. Shadows swirled. _Don't!_

He kneed the boy in the gut. There was probably internal bleeding. Shadows coiled. _Don't!_

His fist connected with the child's temple brutally. The boy fell and didn't get up. Shadows tensed. Light could cry no more.

And just like that, in one single second of time, mighty Shadows sprung up from nothingness and into the physical realm. They were silky, dark and cold, and they sang of power and vengeance to the Ancient who could control them and free them, but they shouted of pain and revenge to Vernon Dursley.

The man paled, his watery eyes widened as they took in what he was sure would be his death. He was right. The Shadows curled and danced, and formed tendrils and hooks of pure, frightening darkness, claws of chilly black and they flew at Vernon. They tore into his flesh and tasted his blood; they hungered and thirsted for more, they wanted his life and his soul and they would have it…the Ancient allowed it.

A pair of glinting red eyes appeared from amongst the creepy darkness and they were the last thing Vernon Dursley ever saw, before the tendrils of unnatural shadow dove into his body, destroying and tearing it, and ripped his blackened soul to tiny little shreds that shriveled and faded. He never even got the chance to scream.

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**Author's Notes:** This chapter is decidedly much more violent than anything I've ever written before, so I hope I didn't spoil it all awfully, since I'm not too experienced with writing bloodshed ^^U. This part basically happened because to be truthful I got tired of Vernon slapping Harry around and Atem having to restrain himself so, as soon as Harry lost consciousness Atem lost his conscience…so to speak. I must say that even though I regret having to up the rating, I feel that extracting a little revenge was worth it. (makes me wonder what I'm gonna do when/if Light meets Dolores Umbridge) ^-^U

***** I bet you were all waiting for the parseltongue thing!

XD Sorry to disappoint but – much to my own surprise, since I love parseltongue – this Harry cannot speak to snakes. Why can't he speak to snakes?...Well because that was apparently a trait he got from the Horcrux in him and since that Horcrux went poof when Atem showed up…well, yes, you can imagine. Maybe if Harry had had the Horcrux for alonger time I could have explained the ability slipping into him independently of the soul piece…but as it is. So, yeah, sorry if you were hoping for a parseltongue Harry….but don't worry, I'm giving him a few new and hopefully unexpected abilities instead.

This is the part where the story begins to really diverge from the Harry Potter cannon, not counting the long-dead Pharaoh hanging around Harry. So, what do you think might happen next? Is Light alive? Will someone find Vernon dead and pin it on him? Will the wizards suspect something about Shadow Magic? And what about Atem? Will he finally be able to manifest physically and help Light?

All this and more to be found next chapter, and I promise it's going to be mighty interesting! Till then! ^_^

And now, to answer some reviews ^_^:

**Queen Lucy The Valient**: Ah, very good question! Well, it will probably be explained in more detail in the story but basically, the Shadow Realm is a place out of the world that joins all other world, or realities, same as the afterlife in that way. So basically, the same Shadow Realm that existed in Atem's world is present in Harry's, it only lacks people who know how to call to it…until now XD

**Ethorin**: Thank you for the review! Okay for your questions. The wizards might realize that it isn't accidental magic but, with Harry being who he is and all, they are probably under orders of not interfering or they simply expect such a famous character to show signs of more powerful magic and simply leave it at that…most wizard seem to have a rather faulty common sense, so either of the two is possible and to be truthful I still haven't decided which I'm going with and explain in future chapters. As for number two, Atem's Shadow Magic relief heavily on his Puzzle so he is only starting to get his strength back and use the Shadows without it, he still can't summon monsters on his own.

**Saturnblue**: *nod nod* I agree. Atem is having enough trouble trying to keep Light from going off the edge and with what happened in this chapter…well it's only bound to get Light a little bit less…well, light. But I guess we'll see what happens and how Dumbledore reacts to all of this.

**berkie88**: Thank you very much for your reviews! Oh, they might not think it accidental but they are still unwilling to interfere and that is going to get them in some serious trouble with Light later on. Not only that but now that Vernon is dead the wizards might actually think Harry is already a rising Dark Lord and push him even further. I'm not all that sure what will happen but I know it's gonna be one exciting ride for Harry and Atem. XD

And a big Thank you to **everyone** who reviewed. Really, that sort of thing is what keeps me happily writing ^_^


	6. Run and Don't Look Back

**Light and Darkness**

Chapter Six

_Run and Don't Look Back_

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A low moan of pain came from the black-haired child resting on the floor like some carelessly thrown rag doll. It was obvious that he has hurting and rather badly too. The boy slowly and with a lot of difficulty placed his hands against the cold, unforgiving floor and pushed with all the strength he had left, trying to push himself onto a kneeling position at the very least. Every single cell in his body seemed to protest the movement and his nerves lit up with indescribable pain but the child stubbornly held the anguished cry within himself – although he could do nothing to prevent the pained groan that escaped even his strength of will. When his body was finally somewhat lifted away from the dirty floor, the boy opened his eyes.

They were blood-red.

He took in the grisly sight in front of him and another pained sound escaped his throat, but this one had nothing to do with the physical hurt his body found itself in, but rather the turmoil that afflicted his mind and heart. He could not believe, simply could not believe that this had happened.

He had done this.

The child got to his feet, his shock and horror for a moment overcoming the pain and stress this movement caused his body. He should have known that this would happen, that his control would slip sooner or later and someone would have to pay the prize. He should have known that the monster he hid inside his heart would surface one day to seek revenge.

Not that he was entirely regretful of the occurrence. Oh, he had no regrets about the man being gone from this world. Rather, he regretted that it had come to this, that he'd had to recur to murder to bring safety and that his most cherished person in this world had been hurt before such safety had been achieved.

In that moment, as though remembering something, the child looked around with wide and frightened eyes, frantically looking for something. Where was…? Crimson eyes widened even more in shock and the boy's gaze slowly turned down, finally resting on his trembling hands. His knees buckled underneath him, suddenly unable to support him, and he went back down to the ground.

"Light" Said the child, but his voice carried a tint of grief, sorrow and ancient sadness that could simply not belong to a boy, especially not one of the age his body portrayed.

And such statement would be correct, because this was no boy. This was Atem, once King of Egypt and now nothing but a Spirit that had resorted to taking over someone else's body…again. Almost impossibly, his guilt doubled and threatened to consume him.

'_Light is…Light's hands are red…blood red'_ The Pharaoh's grief-stricken thoughts came in waves, feeding the negative feelings that seemed to fester in his soul this day.

'_My fault, this is all my fault!' _The voice of his mind cried out in sorrow.

'_Light…' _The name he had given his charge sounded like an echoing whisper inside the Dark's thoughts, and one anguished tear escaped him as he thought of the child he had sworn to protect.

He panicked, thinking of all the possibilities that derived from this decidedly bizarre event. He had never, during the decade he had spent with Light, ever taken over the body in such a manner. It wasn't for lack of trying, though, as he had long since come to the realization that if he took over the body during Light's hardest chores and punishments then he could take the pain for the boy, and spare a bit of innocence in the child. Regardless, every one of his tries had been blocked, and he was sure that the block didn't come from Light himself, until now.

The once Pharaoh hurriedly closed his eyes and turned his sight _inside_. He let out a breath of relief that made his cracked ribs protest loudly, having just found Light's own conscience and soul still inside the body it rightfully belonged to, merely 'sleeping' for now. He had feared for a moment that, in his mad rage, he might have damaged his dear Light as they switched places.

With Light's relative safety ensured, Atem turned to more pressing problems. For starters, he had a rather brutally murdered man right in front of him and he really had no way to logically explain anything to the authorities that were sure to show up soon enough, unless of course they were willing to believe in ancient spirits, possession and Shadow magic. And never mind the authorities, the man's family was still inside the house and they would _know_ that this hadn't been an accident, and Atem would not put it past the harpy-woman to try and off her already half-dead nephew for this.

The boy gave a deep breath, which again brought protest from his aching ribs, closed his eyes, and put all of his will power into calming down. He could not panic now, not when Light's life and future were on the line because of his stupid lack of self-control. When his eyes next opened they had lost all fear and shock, gaining instead an almost cold look accompanied by a calculating glint. He had to put his feelings aside and think logically, with the mind of a strategy master, to figure out the best course of action now.

Obviously, he couldn't release control of the body for now since not only was Light out cold, but if the child woke up in control then he would be the one feeling the heaps of pain Atem was currently in, the body simply too damaged. Also, they could simply not stay here any longer, not with this murder on his hands – to the rest of the world, Light's hands, which was even worse. So, his only choice was to go through with Light's long-since-devised plan and run away…this time forever.

Remembering the last time they had tried it, when they had ended up having to sneak back in the house in order to get some belongings and necessities, Atem forced the drained and damaged body to move. He went into their cupboard, their safe haven waiting just a couple yards away from him, and painfully gathered Light's scarce few material goods into the old blanket the boy used for cover during chilly nights, unwilling to touch his Light's valued possessions with his blood-stained hands. A set of secondhand clothes – the best ones he had or at least the ones that fit better –, the hand-made deck of playing cards, a notebook filled with sketches and the scarce few art supplies pilfered from school. An almost pathetic amount of belonging by anyone else's standards, but to Light they were almost prized.

Atem didn't even close the cupboard door, unwilling to make more noise and call Petunia's attention, as he moved on to his next target. He stood next to the slowly growing pool of cooling blood, watching the end result of years of accumulated rage towards this man, before he finally gathered his courage and searched through the corpse's pockets. Stealing from the dead was a decidedly gross crime, but Atem could not allow himself the luxury of ancient morals right now, and he would need the money to buy Light food and supplies later on. For Light, he would even turn to his ancient enemy's methods and put aside his opinion on the matter.

Finally having collected everything he could, and somehow managing to keep the urge to throw up down, he limped towards the front door, opened it as noiselessly as a skilled thief – and wouldn't Bakura just love to hear that! – and stepped out into the shadows of the night.

He was gone before anyone could realize.

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Miles and miles away from the eerily silent Privet Drive there was a place as different from that little suburb as night was from day. It was a place of wonder and magic, of knowledge and growing, and it had been a beacon of light for many generations of wizards now. It was the ancient castle known as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Hogwarts was usually bursting with life, its corridors, halls and rooms filled with rowdy magical children, magic all around, noise all around, a truly lively place. However, as summer break had started only a little while ago now, the place was almost abandoned, with only the teachers and other staff there to fills its magnitude of rooms.

It was in one of the many towers of Hogwarts that the office of one Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts among many other things and titles, could be found. And inside that office there were many cabinets, all of them filled with baubles and trinkets. One particular cabinet, though, contained particularly important trinkets; little shiny crystal things that served as anchors to a very special set of wards…Harry Potter's wards.

Since the Potter child was such an important character in the wizarding world, it was of no surprise that his residence was so heavily warded, to protect the child as well as the child's secret of magic. It had been years now that the wards had been active, monitoring the use of magic in the little muggle house, preventing the entrance of unauthorized wizards or dark creatures and all in all keeping an eye on little Harry Potter.

With such marvelous functioning for a decade now, it really wasn't surprising that Dumbledore had grown to trust these wards impeccably and heavily relied on them to let him know the status of the young wizard hero. Growing confident, however, usually leads to disaster and this case was no exception.

What Albus Dumbledore – nor indeed anyone else – could possibly plan for was the fact that there was another conscious soul attached to Harry Potter, a soul capable of taking control and assuming use of the physical body. Sadly modern magical wards really could do nothing about soul magic, since such a branch was ancient and banned due to being considered dark and dangerous, so they could do nothing about detecting the extra one. Even though of this effect, ward could read magical cores and magical cores were very heavily affected by soul magic, as each soul had a very different 'flavor' to its magic. Not only that, but wards made by wizard magic really had no way of making any sense of other kinds of magic like, say, Shadow Magic, and could only interpret is as a sort of 'white noise', to give it a name. All of this piled together into one convoluted mess of coincidences that had the effect of screwing with the wards' perception.

In other words, the moment the ancient spirit of Atem took control over the body a change was caused in the magical core of said body and, to the ward, Harry Potter stopped existing. Now, usually if something happened to Harry the anchors would alert whoever was around of the fact, but this was in case of death or kidnapping, not of simple vanishing. The wards themselves were tied to Harry Potter and so simply ceased to exist the very moment the boy's usual magical core became undetectable therefore failing to do their job and alert someone.

That night, not one tiny noise was emitted from the crystal trinkets, not one simple indicator that there was something wrong going on with Harry Potter, except for the little fact that the anchors died and stopped emitting magic. In a place as saturated with magic as Hogwarts was, the lack of such a relatively tiny source of magic really was as easily overlooked as though it were nonexistent at all.

As it all was, no one would miss Harry Potter for a month, when the boy's acceptance letter was to be delivered and the responsible authorities finally realized their mistake.

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**Author's Notes:** Chapter six already! Well, not a lot has happened in this one, except for Atem [and Light since he's pretty much a passenger right now] running away. That and the 'not missed for a month' part should also let you know that this is going to differ from the HP cannon a whole lot. Main point might still be there, but the way he'll reach those points will be as different as I can manage to XD

The second part was mostly to explain why this happened and why no one came to get Harry immediately after the Vernon attack. It sure should be interesting to see what those two get up to now that they are finally free, though severely injured.

On a happy notice, I've uploaded new chapters for not just this, but several of my stories so I'll leave you guys with enough updates to read for the week while I go away on holiday (Yay! Goin' to the beach, baby! XD) so I will be expecting loads of reviews when I come back home!...just kidding, but it would be nice of you -_^

And on an entirely different note, I'm going to have to resort to some advertising here ^^U You see some of my friends have this band that is currently competing in a contest to open a concert for Misfits. Sadly, the contest turned from a test of skill into a popularity contest so it doesn't matter that they are the only band participating that actually play the same genre as Misfits, they still need the votes to win. So yeah, if any of you guys would be kind enough to just click 'like' on this, I'll be insanely grateful ^_^ http: / www . facebook . ?fbid=10150556142215717&set=o.8192055889&type=1&theater [just remove the spaces please]

And a big Thank you to **everyone** who reviewed. Really, that sort of thing is what keeps me happily writing ^_^

**Queen Lucy The Valient****:** Well, to be honest I'm not completely sure about his friends…I mean, I love Ron and Hermione but Harry's changes a lot from the Harry of cannon…still, I think there is at the very least a chance that he'll still be friends or at least friendly with them. As for the house, well, I'm afraid that gonna have to wait until he gets to Hogwarts…I'm not ruining the surprise XD

**Stebba stud28****:** Yeah, second book is gonna be a bit harder, but I've already got a plan for it…or a possibility at least. And there is going to be some surprises with languages, but I'm not saying what exactly yet -_^ Oh, Umbridge *growls* I am still thinking of a painful enough punishment for that woman, unfortunately torture doesn't seem enough yet so I'm probably gonna have to tap into my inned Bakura in order to come up with something. And Malfoy…Oh, Malfoy is probably gonna have to learn to control himself if he doesn't want to get eaten by some shadow beasties *smirks* ^^U

**XxAlysxX****:** I did consider that, leaving the ability there since it had been there at some point in time, even though it was a very short time, but Harry has a shadow magic-wielding, knowledgeable and wise ancient spirit for a bodyguard, magical training since early childhood and some ability for shadow magic himself…I had to take away at least one ability to balance the whole thing some, otherwise he would be awfully overpowered and with too many advantages.

**Lady Avotil****:** *nod nod* Very right, but the point is…will the wizards even consider the possibility that it was Harry who did that to Vernon? Most wizards seem to kinda miss the obvious and jump to crazy conclusions *cough*SiriusBlack*coughcough* so what will they make of this? Guess we'll just see once he gets to Hogwarts and is questioned…because there is no doubt about that, he will be questioned. ^^U

**mist shadow****:** You know, at first I actually was gonna make it just a penalty game, with Vernon believing he had died and everything, but in the end decided to just make it real because I seriously didn't want to deal with that guy anymore. I'll just save Atem's "Mind Crush's" for a later time XD


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